DRAFT

A poignant picture of love and loyalty, and based on historical events, The Envy of Paradise is a fictional account of four people who played key roles during the 1857 uprising in Lucknow, one of the most significant resistances to English rule in India. Set before Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, the novel follows Begam Hazrat Mahal, the African-Indian woman who organized the resistance to English rule; her multi-talented but tormented ex-husband, King Wajid 'Ali Shah; Maryam Pari, manager of the Envy of Paradise (a dancing/sing... + Read More

It is 1970. The evergreens are thick with snow despite it being the month of April. In an Ottawa hospital, another daughter is born to the Azar family. The parents are from Kfarmichki, a village in Lebanon but their daughters were born in Canada. Four daughters, to be precise. No sons. Youssef is the domineering father. Samira is the quiescent mother. Rima, Katrina and Mona are the traditional daughters. Then there is Adele, the newest member. "You should've been born a boy," Samira whispers to Adele shortly after her entrance into the world. A... + Read More

Kate, a somewhat clumsy widow of thirty-two, flees her stifling hometown on Vancouver Island to live alone on an even smaller island in the Salish Sea. In so doing, she has vague expectations of solace and sanctuary, despite past experience. Instead she meets Ivy, a woman who through their conversations transports her to the intoxicating world of 1926 Cuba. Within the context of their friendship, Ivy's past begins to unravel from a long-held silence, just as Kate finds herself confronting her relationship with the colourful community she's know... + Read More

Thirty-two-year-old Kang is a new immigrant in Toronto. Having an older sister who was raped and suffers from the ensuing stigma in China, Kang is determined to remain a spinster, which has its own stigma in China, and she struggles with her fear and distrust of men. But Kang's story is not a hard luck story. She is an intelligent woman and a successful immigrant. Kang deals with the perplexities of a different culture by maintaining a sense of curiosity, an enjoyment of learning about the new culture, and by finding humour rather than the humi... + Read More

A Palace in Paradise is a novel about the complex Iranian refugee and immigrant community in Toronto and the way in which one woman's death changes the lives of many others. The people in this community are connected by family ties, cultural ties, romance, and the fact that, as immigrants, they not only share a culture, but they also share a past of political violence. Several were at one time imprisoned in Evin, a notorious jail in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Some were unable to withstand the daily torture and constant physical pain they wer... + Read More

Abby Faria returns from an extended vacation/work holiday in BC to discover that her friend, Maria is having marital problems, problems that are affecting her children as well. As Abby resumes her job as a bike courier, it becomes clear that Maria's troubles are bigger than she first presented and they are soon compounded with the disappearance of her son. She turns to Abby for help. As usual, as Abby tries to piece together the clues, and to help keep Maria's fish shop running, she makes new friends who help out. Alex, the woman who took over ... + Read More

Where I Fall, Where She Rises is a novel that follows two women on opposite ends of a terrorist kidnapping. While one woman suffers and falls at the hands of her captors, the other exploits the fame of such a publicized event to secure a future for her unborn child. Lea Ironstone is a Canadian freelance journalist who recalls her time spent in the very dangerous red zone of Baghdad, after the 2003 U.S. invasion. A self-destructive addict, she refuses to relegate herself to the safer green zone, where most mainstream news journalists like Paul S... + Read More

The poems in Any Waking Morning probe deeply into love, loss, and life's darker dilemmas. They seek pathways and meaning, interrogate endings and life changes, and tap the creative energy engendered through art's ekphrastic cycles. While foregrounding the influence of contemporary ideas on the author's poetic explorations, the collection returns inevitably to images, insights and experiences from the Caribbean and the author's early life. Unfolding in four sections: "The Way Light Falls," "Unmasked," "Beyond Convergence," and "Fragments and Hea... + Read More

We Are Malala is an imagined dialogue between Nobel Peace winner Malala Yousafzai and the poet about historical, cultural and spiritual themes. Malala's autobiography, I Am Malala, inspired this collection. Judaism, Islam and Christianity are in increasingly and dangerously hot conflict. This volume of poetry, also inspired by Karen Armstrong and Sally Armstrong, two unrelated conciliators/activists, attempts to bridge the gap between those religions through dialogue and respect for other belief systems. This collection also includes artwork by... + Read More

Radiant is a poetic exploration of one hopeful person's healing journey through cancer--from missed appointment, to mammogram, to diagnosis, to surgery, chemo, and radiation,through hysterectomy, genetic testing through to wholeness. Kate Marshall Flaherty's luminouspoetry is raw, honest yet radiant and life-affirming. The poems are chronological, yettimeless; they are courageous and graphic, yet tenaciously realistic and positive. These poems are unflinching in their exploration of "fear, death, the whole shebang." They vary in form from odes ... + Read More

On the Edge tells the story of Emerald Lake Visser, an unhappy fourteen-year-old who came to live on her aunt and uncle's farm when she was orphaned at age five. A misfit in her community and at school, her only real friend is an elderly woman, Jess, who teaches her to sail. Emma's a natural sailor, as if she's been on a sailboat her whole life. When Jess dies, it's revealed that she was Emma's grandmother. After receiving a letter that her mother may be living in the Bahamas, Emma runs away on her grandmother's boat, the Edge, to find her. Dis... + Read More

Both charming and powerful, this memoir unfolds the story of a young girl born in Iran who eventually triumphs over sexism and abuse to become a successful woman and mother in Canada. The book opens with a dramatic account of a terrible accident that leaves a young child with burn scars all over her chest. This scarring has a profound effect on the girl's life. Yet, despite this accident, the narrator's childhood is rich and blessed in many ways. The family circle is extensive and the relationships, especially with the wonderful Baba (her fathe... + Read More

Much has been written by others about the relationship Irving Layton and Harriet Bernstein shared, and most of it is inaccurate. This book tells the true story, and in so doing provides a look into the CanLit scene between 1974-1981. Students and admirers of Layton's work will discover the genesis of many poems; other readers will find a unique and powerful love story, one that also probes issues of feminism, creativity, and self-creation.

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